Novak (And Others) Online

Bob Novak went on-line at the WaPo to take reader's questions.  If this one was not from Jeff Lomonaco (aka 'Jeff', and can we get a picture?), then there are far too many Plamaniacs in Minnesota:

Minneapolis: I found your book very entertaining reading. Since you finished writing it, it has been disclosed publicly by the government both that Valerie Wilson was a covert employee by the CIA's own standards, and that investigators determined early on that she was in fact a "covert agent" covered by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- in part because, contrary to what you say in your book, she indeed had performed missions abroad undercover in the period immediately preceding the public blowing of her cover in your column. She was not, as you assert in your book, a desk-bound analyst at CIA headquarters. (And by the way, it is investigators' and prosecutors' responsibility, not the CIA's, to determine whether Wilson was covered by the IIPA legislation.) How does that change your view of the case and of your own role in it? Have you revised your view of whether what you did was regrettable?

Robert D. Novak: Special Counsel had three years (and millions of dollars) to determine whether anybody violated the IIPA. Of course, nobody did.

Also, do you take seriously the claim that a person driving her car every day from her home to CIA headquarters at Langley was a covert agent?

Not a bad question, or at least, let's say it is a far better question than answer.

To respond to Novak's quip, yes, I believe that a CIA officer who had been stationed overseas in the previous five years could have been covered by the IIPA (i.e., "covert" in that specific sense) even if she was driving daily to CIA headquarters.  However, one might well wonder whether that really qualifies as the behavior of a covert officer behavior in a practical, rather than legalistic sense.  [I spark a justifiable reader revolt with that, since part of the IIPA requires that "the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States".]

Well.  If I had availed myself of the opportunity to brighten the Prince of Darkness's day, I would have asked him whether he had followed up on the question of Ms. Plame's covert status with Rep. Hoekstra.  When last we looked, the CIA Counsel was still unclear as to her status, but that was many months ago.

And if I had a follow-up, I would query him about Ms. Plame's pension situation - her pension gets increased based on service abroad and the CIA has a formal record of what they consider (by their guidelines, which may not fully overlap with the intent of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act) to be the dates of her service abroad, so my question would be, has Novak talked to Hoekstra or anyone else about just what the CIA considers to be her official dates of service abroad?

And that, BTW, is my response to Jeff  - it may well be the case that in the first wave of investigation the FBI took for granted that Ms. Plame was "covert" as defined by the IIPA; however, the only time that Fitzgerald actually asserted that was in the sentencing phase after the case had gone to verdict and after the defense had forgone their opportunity to challenge that point.  My view - Fitzgerald clearly ducked the point about her pension dates of service, which he would not have done had they gone in his favor (Or do people think Fitzgerald looked at her personnel file but couldn't find that info?  Yet I figured out it was there without even seeing her file.  OK, maybe I am that good.  Possible!)

I also think that in asserting that Ms. Plame was covert Fitzgerald was presenting the position that the logic of his case obliged him to hold rather than the conclusion of any independent analysis.  Certainly, he has not presented anything like a formal analysis of her status vis a vis the statute, and he played dodgeball with the question in pre-trial maneuverings.

And what would that have meant for Libby?  Well, one might conclude that the FBI questioned him in the good faith belief that they were probing a possible crime; in that case, his convictions on the false statement to the FBI would not be affected.

However,  one could further argue that Fitzgerald knew Ms. Plame was not covered by the IIPA and consequently that he had no credible belief that he was investigating any crime other than perjury.  Which would call into question his tactic of calling the perjury target before the grand jury.

Bah.  Water, bridge.  Maybe this gets resolved on appeal.

MORE:  Geez, get a room:

Minneapolis: Anne Kornblut, who now works for The Post, reported back when she worked for the New York Times that you'd been questioned again some time after Rove testified before the grand jury in October 2005. Your book only mentions testifying much earlier, in early 2004. Was that report incorrect, or did you leave the later testimony out of the book?

Robert D. Novak: I testified only once to the grand jury, which is reported in the book.

OK, I'm jealous - if Novak was taking multiple questions from one person, this early bird could have caught a worm himself if he had not been operating sans clue.

Comments

[Neo]

Someday we will get an answer to the question about whether Ms. Flame was a "covered" as opposed to "covert" agent, and I'm sure everybody will be dissatisfied with that answer.

[MayBee]

This answer: Also, do you take seriously the claim that a person driving her car every day from her home to CIA headquarters at Langley was a covert agent?

Addresses this part of Jeff(?)'s question/statement:
it has been disclosed publicly by the government both that Valerie Wilson was a covert employee by the CIA's own standards,
And also addresses the question of whether the government was taking steps to hide its affiliation with her.

I think it is his way of saying he doesn't believe Patrick Fitzgerald's late IIPA assertion.

Look at the recent Hezbollah spy situation. She was definitely overseas, definitely covert, and her name has been published as has her picture. I've not heard an outcry about how dangerous that is to her whole network.

[boris]

she indeed had performed missions abroad undercover in the period immediately preceding the public blowing of her cover in your column

AFAIK her travel abroad to investigate the aluminum tubes was as a CIA analyst.

Besides the IIPA was never intended to cover agents who take missions. If one cover is blown they can simply use a new one.

It was intended to cover agents living undercover abroad at risk of capture if they can't escape in time when their cover's busted. The 5 year rule was to protect the agent's former foreign contacts who could be linked to the CIA by association.

Isolated 007 type missions would not fall under either intended protection of the IIPA.

[GYTR]

Social theory? It's Lucifer!!!!

Anyone can be covered under IIPA. Any(one) government employee can be 'vetted' and cleared by a diplomat's husband or wife like Plame or Prouty. So, if your a US government employee overseas and there is a military coup and the country is breaking apart into new countries and the US citizen, who happens to be a US government employee, needs a 'classifed' clearance, a clearance which is not supposed to be there and has to be classified; Plame, Prouty or even someone like Ames could do this. The classified classifcation would be at DoJ or, now, DoD; CIA would be excluded(of course, CIA is now at DoD), unless the classifying agency was CIA, then it would be a harder counter intelligence work, depending on what the CIA operations officer was doing; like Plame investigating classified, classified IIPA of non CIA personnel related to the arrest of Ames, which is why it was classified, classified to arrest a bad CIA agent, counter intelligence, which, of course, could not and did not exist, unless someone like Plame starts poking around, which is how counter intelligence works, but this operations officer is not bad like Ames and didn't intend to get everybody killed like the 10 operations officers in Iraq the day after Plame went public in 'Vanity Fair' requesting action on her behalf.

So, Prouty was a FBI and CIA, so it's not really important who at DoJ leaked the IIPA because that was the intent once the files had been requested by CIA. Basic counter intelligence. So, someone like Plame or Prouty would have been 'run' by CIA or DoJ after requesting the files. Prouty now has a bunch of overseas cleared CIA/FBI US citizens, possibly government employees that are classified, classified who have no protection,except for IIPA when they get home and, gee, maybe, when someone requests their files we can do some counter intelligence because they are listed as blown anyway. Prouty doesn't have a future and neither do those classified, classified people - she could have been smart like Plame.

Novak can't loose.

[Cecil Turner]

To respond to Novak, yes, I believe that a CIA officer who had been stationed overseas in the previous five years could have been covered by the IIPA (i.e., "covert" in that specific sense) even if she was driving daily to CIA headquarters.

Well, I think it may be arguable that she may have qualified as "covert" under the IIPA definition (i.e., her employment was classified, and had had something that could be argued as "service" overseas in the previous five years), but I think it's risible to claim that, for someone who'd been driving to Langley for several years:

the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States.

Which is the other requirement under the IIPA. If that's what Novak meant, I think he's got the better argument here.

Besides, it's not Novak's job to protect Plame's cover. That's the CIA's responsibility (and particularly, Plame's). If she's chairing interagency meetings just assuming everyone is going to know she's covert, suggesting her hubby for high-profile CIA missions and then sitting in on his discussions with reporters . . . well, when that information finally filters around to Novak (and Woodward, Dickerson, Pincus, and whoever else got told), it's not a secret anymore. And if the CIA is passing the info out to anyone who asks--without bothering to mention it's a secret--then it soon won't be much of one. Trying to blame this on Novak is more than a bit hard to credit. Seems to me the question could much more profitably be asked of Ms Plame . . . but she apparently won't even answer that sort of question from her fans.

[boris]

Jeff apparently believes that Rove and Libby had seperate access to knowledge of supposed covertiness untainted by Val's own sloppy tradecraft. By confirming to Novak ("You heard that too") Rove was immeasurably more guilty of evil than Armitage who's leak was ultimately based on Val's slip up.

[TM]

OK, good point about the affirmative measures.

[Topsecretk9]

"Living My Cover" apparently means being a social spouse in the company of reporters while your husband discusses the very classified information of your employment that would compromise said cover.

And now that we know the CIA did have those forgeries, why did she sit idly by while her husband discussed the details of them?

[Topsecretk9]

This is pretty classic:

Denver: Have you rethought the admiration you expressed for Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the column that he still claims ruined his wife's life?

Robert D. Novak: Yes, I was much too kind to him.

[MayBee]

And now that we know the CIA did have those forgeries, why did she sit idly by while her husband discussed the details of them?

She didn't just sit idly by. She was actively emailing her (bosses?) at the CIA about what Joe was discussing, at least with Grossman.
The question really is, why did her department at the CIA let it keep happening?

[Sara]

Jeff, who writes long, rambling comments with cherry-picked facts leading to illogical conclusions teaches "political thought?" Yikes!

[clarice]

Of course, he does. If academics had to keep to a strict word limit, it'd be so much easier to see they are spouting nothingness.

[anduril]

Thanks, Cecil, for pointing out ONCE AGAIN the affirmative measures requirement.

[memomachine]

Hmmmm.

1. This whole debate over the "covert" or not status of Plame is a complete waste of time.

2. Plame nominated her husband, a former ambassador, to a secret mission for the CIA.

3. Said husband went on said mission.

4. Said husband, the husband supposedly of a CIA **covert** officer, then penned a lengthy New York Times Op-Ed piece on said mission.

...

What part of **covert** justifies any of this? How on earth could a **covert** officer believe for one single second that her cover wouldn't be completely blown when her husband, with her encouragement, writes an explosive, and ultimately wrong, Op-Ed in the **New York Times**?

Does anyone think for a second that, if during the Cold War, an actual covert CIA officer in Moscow would tell her husband "Oh yeah you definitely need to write that opinion piece for the New York Times!"??

Does anyone think it advisable for a covert CIA officer in Beijing to laud her husband for becoming a notorious celebrity?

Utter and complete nonsense.

[maryrose]

memomachine: Agreed!

[maryrose]

Scott McClelland non-story sank like a stone...

[Belv1626]

Plamaniacs are evidently thick on the ground in Minneapolis.

Look: The good prof. blogs at http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2007&base_name=post_2896 about another nemesis' Post chat and there too there's a "Minneapolis"-based inquiring mind whose sally he helpfully reports on.

And he wouldn't fail to disclose his own authorship of the query in question, would he?

[Belv1626]

Gotta learn how to do those html tag thingys.

Oh wait. Is this it?

[MayBee]

Scott McClelland non-story sank like a stone...

Yes, to the Plame-Wilson's chagrin. They were on Huffington Post this weekend, expressing jealousy that Natalee Halloway's murder was getting more attention than them.

[anduril]

Oh, man! Forget Plame for a moment--well, there is a tie in: Plame knew Hillary.

The LATimes as an article here called Clinton the organized. Hugh Hewitt (Stop the Presses!) has some selections from the article:

Here's a lovely glimpse of the inner Red Queen at work in Senator Clinton, from the article's extensive account of the rise and fall of HillaryCare:

She courted skeptical Senate Finance Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan, but undercut the stroking with threats. At a weekend retreat after the State of the Union address in 1993, she dismissed worries about meeting a 100-day deadline set by her husband for a healthcare bill. Asked what would happen if they were late, she said: "You don't understand. We will demonize those who are blocking this legislation and it will pass."

Another glimpse of the senator channeling Madame Defarge:

As a boss, she inspired equal amounts of devotion and fear. She built an insular White House fiefdom known as Hillaryland, surrounding herself with a tightknit band of loyalists who skillfully advanced her causes, but who were also criticized for isolating her from political realities.

Hillaryland's denizens began to jokingly refer to themselves as "the Stepford Wives." Their unflinching devotion gained them wide berth in the West Wing.

Staffers were expected to work grueling hours and report back any development that involved the first lady. She kept them busy with news clippings that she covered with scrawled questions and filed in a cardboard carton in her office.

Mistakes were tolerated, but Clinton led intense post-mortems to keep her people focused. A well-aimed glare or a roll of the eyes told them all they needed to know. "She'd stare at us and say, 'Who was the cause of this?' And all of us would raise our hands," press assistant Neel Lattimore recalled.

Read the whole thing.

[Other Tom]

Cecil Turner and Memomachine have nailed this one so thoroughly that I can't think of anything to say. Just wanted you all to know I'm still here...

[anduril]

OT, there appears to be a growing revulsion among Democrats at the thought of Hillary as candidate. Seems there a lot of people who knew her and came away not liking her one bit. A unique talent for making enemies.

[kim]

I wonder if those who know her and dislike her are responding to the same thing those who don't know her and dislike her are, that is, fear.
==============================

[Sara]

Well from what I've read about Hillary, and I try to avoid reading about her as much as I can, she is a total bitch to those who do not serve her political ambition. And, she has a very foul mouth and is not shy about directing her wrath at those she deems unimportant in her ambition schemes. Office workers, security details, etc. all are fair game, or so I've heard.

[MayBee]

If you get an advance for a book, and your book doesn't sell well, do you have to pay the publisher back?

[clarice]

No. And in the past few years, it's clear to me that publishers like Simon & Schuster are paying off their friends with lavish book deals on which it'll lose money.
Ted Kennedy reportedly is getting an $8 million advance. Now, you know his book will be ghost written, fluffed up to avoid some unsavory truths about the "author" and will be on the remainder shelves before the last book reviews are in.

[GRa]

Plame's husband grew up in Spain. His dad was a diplomat. He might have been CIA working against the Basks(Madrid bombing and Iraq operations officers) . Joe might have been CIA while at the State Department. The contracts might have been a cover for his previous employment at CIA. Plame referred him for the contracts. She would be referring a covert CIA operations officer, retired under cover, for contracts based on his relationship in Africa, where he was in PC. It's possible, based on the laws at the time, that Joe was a CIA operations officer in PC and his cover was excellent. Plame would be referring a retired CIA operations officer for contracts. This would be excellent cover and a better reason for hiring him than his father.

Plame was shopping for this type of cover,with an emphasis on CIA. Of course, a non CIA person would be less desireable for her cover(see Ames trainers), but an emphasis on PC, referring to her investigation of Ames, which lead to counter intelligence and her marriage to Joe(she would be run from here by CIA or DIA); the perfect cover for a bad agent(Ames trainers).

Joe was famous.

[anduril]

"On the remainder shelves before the last book reviews are in?"

Ya think the public's not just dying to read something, anything, about Teddy?

[Sara]

Is anyone going to care what a grossly fat lecherous old drunk has to say?

[clarice]

anduril, I think not. The moving finger having writ and all

[anduril]

 More on Hillary, the Democratic front runner, from the LATimes, a presumptively Democrat friendly newspaper:

The healthcare initiative started out as Clinton's most ambitious experiment in policymaking and ended up as her greatest management failure, trailing criticism that her performance was flawed by hubris, inflexibility and a penchant for secrecy and political combat.

 But her gates-drawn stance raised concerns that shadow her presidential bid today -- that she reacts with a siege mentality under pressure, retreating behind a restrictive wall of presidential and attorney privilege.

 Her doggedness was not matched by her coalition-building skills. Chicagoan Dan Rostenkowski, the gruff, powerful former House Ways and Means chairman, felt that congressional committees should lead the way. "None of the people in your think tank can vote," he recalls telling Clinton. "She wasn't persuaded."

 

A charming picture.  Just charming. 

And isn't this bit odd:

Clinton wrote later in her autobiography, "if I was going to be working on Bill's agenda." Her purview, as she saw it, was "issues affecting women, children and families."

 Since her baby was health care, what would be the point in omitting MEN from her purview?  Bashfulness?  Humility?  Probably not.  But after all, men interact continually with women and children--approximately half of whom (children) grow up to be men--and every man comes from a family of one sort or other.  Given her "hubris," how odd that she would exempt half the human race from her purview in a field like health care. A strange, disjointed, unnatural way of looking at the world--and half the human race.

 

 

[SunnyDay]

Is this our Jeff?

[MayBee]

SunnyDay- yes.

[clarice]

Hillary was active while in Arkansas at a 501(c)(3) operation called the Womens Legal Defense Fund which a few years ago changed its name. I believe it's now a 527 with a focus on "families". It's former head, Judith Lichtman is now on Hil's payroll as a liaison with womens groups.

Keep an eye on it--surely it will be chruning out "non partisan" reports on the dreadful straits of women and children in the US.

There's a big interview with Ben Bradlee posted onLucianne. He says his wife and most of the women he knows hate Hil.

Hil's latest shtick is that old women love her. Possibly. My mother is 88 and still can't quite fathom--smart as she still is--that FDR is dead and Hil isn't Eleanor.

[GMax]

(Please) Speak for yourself. I take no ownership herein -in the package or the product. Its like when I show up to the basketball game and the announcer says in deep timbre " YOUR Dallas Mavericks" and I think, "when did Cuban sell them to me?"

[GMax]

(Please) Speak for yourself. I take no ownership herein -in the package or the product. Its like when I show up to the basketball game and the announcer says in deep timbre " YOUR Dallas Mavericks" and I think, "when did Cuban sell them to me?"

[Other Tom]

"...still can't quite fathom--smart as she still is--that FDR is dead and Hil isn't Eleanor."

That's probably because, late at night, Hil actually talks to Eleanor, and obviously is getting some pointers straight from the horse's mouth (so to speak).

[Sara]

Hillary lost me completely when she started spouting "it takes a village to raise a child," when it was clear she meant that it takes a village to indoctrinate/brainwash a child using nanny-state tactics and laws.

[anduril]

Clarice, OT, doesn't it appear that there's a growing conviction among fairly mainstream liberals that Hillary just may be unelectable? Isn't that why we're seeing all these hatchet jobs on her?

[MayBee]

She lost me when she said disparagingly that she could have just stayed home and baked cookies. But I still believed her when she pooh-poohed Gennifer Flowers' claims.

[clarice]

She is unelectable but don't tell the oppo.

OTOH as Kaus points out most of the reporting these days is why__________is unelectable. It beats you know like actually analyzing whatever positions may seep out of their programmed mouths or the nonsensical polls.

[clarice]

I misspoke up above, the prganization once known as the womens legal defense fund is now the National partnership for women and familes and is a 501(c) (3) organization.

http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/PageServer

[SunnyDay]

Sorry Gmax! That was a figurative "our" :D

[Rick Ballard]

"doesn't it appear that there's a growing conviction among fairly mainstream liberals that Hillary just may be unelectable?"

Perhaps "growing uncertainty" would be more correct. The Red Witch lacks the basic political skill set (ability to fake sincerity) to gull the muddle. Mainstream liberals know she's Red as a fire engine, much more so than Bubba, and they know that the muddle won't go for fire engine red candidates. I'd like to see the party and age splits for the "popular among older women" numbers. If "older" averages above seventy then you're talking Yellow Dog territory - women who have never considered voting for a Republican in their lives.

I'm not sure that she is unelectable but I'm sure to this point that she hasn't gulled the muddle and she won't win unless she can. The Red Witch keeps trying to call that hatchet in her hand a wand but nobody is buying.

[anduril]

Rick, re Hillary as red, here's another excerpt from the LATimes:

  "Bill talked about social change, I embodied it," Clinton wrote in "Living History," her autobiography.

 Now, who thinks the majority of Americans are about to march in the streets shouting: Rah, rah, social change!  I think stability and growth is what people want, not throw-it-up-for-grabs social experimentation/change.  I love that, BTW: "social change."  No modifiers, no qualifications.  Just "change," apparently for the sake of change.  Actually, I think most of us know what's left unsaid.
 

[Sara]

Social change or socialist change?

[Other Tom]

Way off topic, but for future reference, Taranto at Best of the Web Today picked off this excerpt from the book "Fiaco" concerning the Democrats' new favorite general"

"There was, and is, much to respect about Sanchez, even if one thinks that he failed as a commander in Iraq. 'I think there are some really admirable qualities,' said Maj. Gen. [David] Petraeus, who reported to him for a year. . . .

"Even so, the methodical Sanchez often appeared overwhelmed by the situation, with little grasp of the strategic problems he faced. The opinion of many of his peers was that he was a fine battalion commander who never should have commanded a division, let alone a corps or a nationwide occupation mission. 'He was in over his head,' said Lt. Col. Christopher Holshek, who served in Iraq in 2003. 'He was a fulfillment of the Peter Principle.' . . .

"'It was my view after seeing him that Rick Sanchez was exactly in the wrong place,' said Richard Armitage. . . . 'And when you look in retrospect, a lot has improved since Rick went out. . . . I came away from my first meeting with him saying that this guy didn't get it.'"

Taranto goes on to opine that "with Sanchez having embraced the role of Democratic spokesman, he comes to look increasingly like the George McClellan of the war on terror."

How very apt.

[Rick Ballard]

"Social change" was code language developed by the Commie Saul Alinsky. We're going to be able to follow the Red Witch's shape shifting for the next year. From loving devotee of the Commie Alinsky through her serving as an "intern" to the Commie lawyer Treuhaft and onto the Democrat Socialists who got her the job for the House committee working on Watergate.

Then on to Arkansas where her commitment to "social change" lifted the state's ranking in education from 49th to 49th - then on to the WH where her true skills shown through in getting her health care politburo to come to detest her as a parasite that no human should ever have to endure.

She has a hell of a resume - as an utter failure.

It sounds as if Sanchez would make the perfect military advisor to her campaign.

[clarice]

HEH! Taranto was especially good today and Rick, that's Ms Hil in a nutshell.I like the way she claims her role as First Lady was on the job experience and how Bill is claiming paternity for the health care fiasco.

[anduril]

OT, re Sanchez, how many ambitious people reach the top of the heap only to discover that, after all those years of striving, they never developed an idea of what to do once they got to the top--except to have the title.  Bureaucracies are designed to advance people like that and only crises can force the system to change.  Petraeus would almost certainly have never got to where he is but for the debacle that Iraq became--he was distrusted by the rest of the brass as an egghead intellectual.

 Shown = shone, often pronounced "shahn."  Irregular.